Theotokou lies at the south-eastern corner of the Magnesian peninsula, a little to the north of the bay of Kato Georgi. The site itself is the seaward end of a narrow valley, where a small brook discharges into a little cove just to the north of a hill called Kastro (Fig. 1). Here there stands a small chapel built in 1807, and dedicated to the Virgin. In the walls of the chapel itself are several ancient blocks, and north and south of it traces of walls are visible. Immediately to the west is a large mass of ruins formerly covered with brushwood; round these stand six fragments of Doric columns, and a seventh lies in a cornfield some distance to the west: an eighth, which was seen here, has disappeared. This place, the traditional site of Sepias, was first visited by a local gentleman, Theódoros Zirghános.

This article is the first of a series presenting the results of two seasons of excavation (2001 and 2002) at the Little Palace North site, Knossos. The excavation was aimed at the exploration of the exposed earth section directly north of the Little Palace, prior to the construction of a drystone wall which was to protect this section from further erosion. While limited in extent, the excavation provided an opportunity to increase our understanding of the layout of the LM and later town and, more generally, of the complex history of occupation of this area, which spans the period from at least the sixteenth century BC to the fourth century AD.

In regard to the early Greek periods, few architectural remains were encountered at the Little Palace North site. Instead, early Greek strata, covering all periods from Subminoan to Orientalizing, yielded evidence for various activities that took place outdoors. These activities included, in one area, the (enigmatic) use of large, clay-lined 'pans' and, in another, metal-working. The results add to our knowledge of the activities at early Greek Knossos and the spatial organization of the settlement.

The article offers a full discussion of the stratigraphy of the early Greek levels, the associated pottery, small finds, and archaeobotanical material.

Σε αυτό το άρθρο δημοσιεύονται – για πρώτη φορά – τα αποτελέσματα των ανασκαφών (2001 και 2002) στην περιοχή βόρεια του Μικρού Ανακτόρου στην Κνωσό. Σκοπός της ανασκαφής ήταν να ερευνηθεί η αρχαιολογική τομή που βρίσκεται αμέσως βόρεια του Μικρού Ανακτόρου, προτού ανεγερθεί ξερολιθιά με σκοπό να προστατευθεί η τομή από περεταίρω διάβρωση. Παρόλο που ήχαν περιορισμένη σε έκταση, η ανασκαφή μας έδωσε την δυνατότητα να καταλάβουμε καλύτερα την δομή της Υστερομινωικής και υστερότερης πόλης, ιδιαίτερα την πολύπλοκη ιστορία της κατοίκησης της περιοχής από το 160 αιώνα π.Χ. μεχρι και τον 40 αιώνα μ.Χ.

Σχετικά με την πρώιμη Ελληνική εποχή, ελάχιστα οικοδομικά λείψανα βρέθηκαν στην περιοχή βόρεια του Μικρού Ανακτόρου. Παρόλα αυτά, τα αρχαιολογικά στρώματα των πρώιμων Ελληνικών χρόνων καλύπτουν από την Υπομινωική μέχρι την Ανατολίζουσα περίοδο, παρουσιάζοντας ενδείξεις για διαφορες δραστηριότητες οι οποίες ελάμβαναν μέρος σε εξωτερικούς χώρους. Οι δραστηριότητες αυτές συμπεριλάμβαναν την αινυγματική χρήση μεγάλων “τηγανιών” με πήλινη επικαλυψη, όπως και μεταλλουργία. Τα αποτελέσματα προσθέτουν στις γνώσεις μας για τις δραστηριότητες στην πρώιμη Ελληνική Κνωσό αλλά και για τη χωροταξία του οικισμού. Το άρθρο αυτό προσφέρει την πλήρη ανάλυση της στρωματογραφίας, της κεραμεικής, των μικροευρημάτων και του αρχαιοβοτανολογικού υλικού των πρώιμων Ελληνικών χρόνων.

In 1950 the Anastelosis Section of the Greek Archaeological Service began the restoration of the ‘Tomb of Clytemnestra’, Fig., Plate 35. In view of our previous researches on the tomb, Dr. Papademetriou and the Anastelosis Section invited us to observe the work and to collaborate by a careful examination of the threshold and other points. Dr. Papademetriou has already published an account of the work himself, and the following notes with the plan and photographs are offered as a supplement to what he has written. We are much indebted to him for his friendly help.

This paper looks at the period of the first regular use of pictorial vase painting in Crete: LM II–III A2 early. The focus is on Knossos, the major findspot for Minoan pictorial pottery of this distinct pre-destruction period. The shapes, motifs and overall character of Minoan pictorial pottery are discussed, as well as the extent of its influence on the earliest Mycenaean figure-style vase-painting.

Finds of the topshells Monodonta turbinata (Born 1780) and M. articulata Lamarck 1822 are discussed. ‘Rings’ made of Monodonta shells were used as rings or pendants

On the east slope of Lower Gypsades hill, about 100 metres west of the Temple Tomb, a chamber tomb came to light in August 1958, when a cutting for a new water pipe was driven through the area (A in Plate 9 a). In the course of this operation, part of a plain larnax (iii) was sliced off, and much earth removed from the west end of the collapsed chamber: at no point, however, had the municipal workmen penetrated to the tomb floor.

The chamber was approached by a sloping dromos (Plate 9 a: length 2·80 metres; max. width 1 metre), roughly cut into the natural kouskouras rock: its walls were approximately perpendicular. Although the gradient varied a good deal, there was no suggestion of a stairway.

The blocking wall was found in good condition. Of especial interest were the numerous fragments of larnakes that had been built into its fabric: some of them could be recognized as belonging to each of the three fragmentary larnakes (i, ii, v) whose scattered pieces were found below and around the two undisturbed burials in the chamber (iii, iv). We may thus distinguish two periods in the history of the tomb: larnakes i, ii, and v were evidently smashed up in order to make room for iv and iii, which must have been deposited in that order. The debris of v was found under iv, with a few adult bones in its wreckage. Part of i lay on the floor near the south-west corner, where two plain vases (2, 3) were found in situ, hence, also, came most of the fragments of the fine L.M. IIIA 2 stirrup vase (1), although its other pieces were scattered all over the floor of the tomb. This small group of offerings may belong to the disturbed adult skeleton, whose skull lay up against the lower edge of iii. Curiously, some fragments of i and ii were also found above the broken lid of iv (Plate 9 b): perhaps the lid of the later larnax was accidentally smashed at the time of the funeral, in which case the debris from earlier burials could have been piled up above it, as a rough and ready means of protection.

The first two fieldwork seasons of the Kato Phana Archaeological Project took place in 1997 and 1998 as a collaborative venture between the British School at Athens and the Mytilene Ephorate of the Greek Archaeological Service. The work comprised archaelogical surface survey and mapping of the lower Kato Phana Valley, cleaning and planning of the sanctuary of Apollo Phanaios and geophysical testing of selected areas around the sanctuary site. This article first sets out the aims of the Project and describes earlier work at the cult centre (Geometric to Early Christian periods) by K. Kourouniotes and W. Lamb. This is followed by an account of the survey methodology and of the results gained: these include the location of Bronze Age findspots NE and SW of the cult centre and a dense concentration of sherds, tile and ancient masonry, ranging in date from the Archaic to Early Christion periods, radiating out from the sanctuary, particularly to the S and SE. To the NW, the survey also succeeded in identifying the ancient quarry site from which grey limestone blocks were cut for the sanctuary constructing. The paper concludes with an account of the geophysical testing carried out at Kato Phana, and looks forward to the next projected phase of the Project's fieldwork.

The uniformity of Mycenaean pottery in its third phase (L.H. III) has often, and naturally, been remarked upon. It was made, we may almost say, by mass-production methods, in so far as such methods may be achieved when the only machine available to aid the potter's hand is his wheel. In the ‘Potter's shop’ at Zygouries certain types repeat themselves by the score with scarcely any variation in size or shape, and with only a little in decoration; from Cyprus, as the Corpus Vasorum will show, one may see in the British Museum alone dozens of small stirrup-jars with so little to differentiate one from another that one cannot remember them individually. More than this; we can find stirrup-jars (and the same is true of other types) from Rhodes or Mycenae or even Egypt that are indistinguishable from the Cypriot ones. There is in fact plenty of evidence to justify the use of terms like uniformity, standardisation, sameness, even monotony, that are sometimes employed in speaking of L.H. III pottery.

The British excavations of Mycenae in 1954 were conducted with research grants from the American Philosophical Society and Bollingen Foundation and with contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, and the British School at Athens, under whose auspices the work was carried out. The Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton has again provided an ideal base for preparing the material for publication.

The work began on June 21st and ceased on August 16th, but the next days up to August 21st were spent in studying and photographing the finds and transporting them to the Nauplia Museum. As before, the inscribed clay tablets and the carved ivories were taken to the National Museum at Athens, to the Director of which, Dr. Karouzos, we owe our best thanks for his friendly help, and the other finds to Nauplia.

The staff of the excavation, in addition to my wife, who again took charge of the records, and myself, consisted of Lord William Taylour of Trinity College, Cambridge, Mrs. R. Stillwell, Miss Elizabeth Wace of Newnham College, Cambridge, Mr. T. Leslie Shear, Jr., of Lawrenceville School, Miss Mary Pym of Girton College, Cambridge, Mr. Herschel Shepard of Princeton University, who was architect, Miss B. Kistruck of Edinburgh University, and Miss Helen Higson of Newnham College, Cambridge.

In 1987 an Archaic Argive-type shield and shield-band were discovered in the sanctuary on the acropolis of Oisyme. Such shields are found in the cemeteries of the northern Aegean, including those at Sindos and Archontiko. However, the Oisyme shield is as yet the only one to come from a sanctuary – a fact due, at least in part, to the limited exploration of early sanctuaries on the coast of Aegean Thrace. It is also the earliest known example of its type in the north-eastern Aegean. Considered alongside earlier literary evidence, such as Archilochus 5W, it helps to trace the introduction and development of the hoplite panoply in Thasos and its peraea. The shield and shield-band can be dated to c.575–550 bce on the basis of their repoussé decoration. The dies employed may have been imported from Peloponnesian (Argive or Corinthian) workshops or produced locally. They show stylistic influence from the contemporary Peloponnese, yet they have no known exact parallels. Metalworkers from the polis of Thasos and its peraea are likely to have imitated the products of southern workshops in much the same way that Thasian potters based their own early production on Cycladic, Chian and other wares. The deity worshipped in the Oisyme sanctuary was an ergane and/or a kourotrophic goddess, such as Artemis and Athena at nearby Thasos or the ‘Parthenos’ at neighbouring Neapolis. It is unlikely that rites of passage for hoplites were a central feature of the cult, since we lack the extensive corpus of weaponry (miniature and/or functional) typical in such cases. The limited number of weapons recovered from the sanctuary fits the established model for female poliad deities in smaller poleis. The shield was probably a personal gift, dedicated either by a retiring hoplite or as a thank offering after a military victory.

At the Director's invitation I was at Sparta for the two months' campaign of 1927, and had the opportunity of studying the pottery found on the Acropolis hill in the four seasons of 1924–27, a deposit that doubtless consisted of offerings to the shrine of Athena Chalkioikos.

The fact that the deposit was not a natural growth but an imported filling (B.S.A. xxvi. p. 252) precluded any observable stratification. Thus there was no hope of obtaining a check on the views as to the development and dating of the Sparta pottery that were based twenty years ago on the stratification found at the shrine of Artemis Orthia. The most that could be hoped for was further light on the details of the style at the various periods.

In 1889 Petrie discovered and cleared a tomb at Kahun in the Fayum, Egypt. It contained a succession of burials in coffins and boxes which had not been disturbed after the final interment. Principally on the evidence of a large collection of beads, Petrie dated the use of the tomb to the Nineteenth-Twentieth Dynasties. This was queried by von Bissing, and after reconsidering the finds, Petrie decided that the tomb has been used during the reign of Tuthmosis III (1504– 1450 B.C.). Since then the tomb has usually been referred to as approximately or possibly of the reign of Tuthmosis III, and in his study of the sixteen Cypriote pots from the tomb Merrillees says there can be no doubt that all the interments were made during the reign ofthat pharaoh.

The aim of this paper is to establish as closely as possible the period of the use of the tomb, and to place in its context a small Mycenaean IIB squat jar, the only Aegean object found in the tomb.

In an article on ‘The Greek Numeral Notation’ published in this Annual, xviii. 98 ff., I restricted myself to a discussion of those systems which compose the so-called ‘acrophonic’ group, promising for some future occasion an article dealing with the second, or ‘alphabetic,’ group of numeral systems. This promise has not been forgotten, though the greatness of the undertaking and the lack of adequate leisure have led to delay in its fulfilment; I have, however, collected considerable materials and hope before long to prepare them for publication. Meanwhile, the accession of fresh evidence relative to the acrophonic numerals, while it does not appear to me to invalidate my main conclusions, calls for the addition of a few notes to my previous article with a view of bringing it up to date and rendering it less incomplete.

This paper draws attention to the potential for recognizing exported Attic Protogeometric pottery by macroscopic characteristics of its fabric, whose salient features are described. The utility of these criteria are tested on a group of pottery from Asine in the Argolis whose Attic origin was not recognized in the original publication. A brief survey of the distribution of exported Attic Protogeometric pottery shows it to occur mainly in the southern Aegean, with notable concentrations at Lefkandi, Aigina, Asine and Knossos. A list of exports is appended to this survey.

In a recent volume of this Annual (XLV 126 ff.) I discussed the alphabetic numeral system as employed in Attica; in the present article I examine the use of letters in Attica and elsewhere to identify different items, often similar in character and appearance, with a view of facilitating reference and simplifying inventories. For such a purpose letters have certain advantages over other symbols which might be devised; they are brief and familiar and they occur in a recognized order. They thus approach nearly to the use of ordinal numbers (contrasting sharply with acrophonic numerals, which are invariably used to represent cardinal numbers), though it cannot be said that they constitute a numeral system, any more than we could claim that we in English use an alphabetic numeral system because, e.g., a, b, c, d are used on p. 4 below to distinguish four items which might equally well have been numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4. The letters here under consideration were not, and could not be, made the instruments of arithmetical calculation, and the highest number expressed in this way in any inscription known to me is 106 (Inscr. Délos 1432 Aa ii 21; see below, p. 8).

Various scholars have dealt briefly with the subject, but the accumulation of a mass of new evidence calls for a fresh treatment, especially of the part played by such letters in inventories. No technical name has, I believe, been given to letters so used, and in this article I call them ‘letter-labels’, a title which emphasizes the function they fulfil in the majority of cases where they occur.

The passage in Herodotos which above all others is written as if to provide a test on their own ground of the historical application of archaeological discoveries is v, 88, 2: ᾿Αττικὸν δὲ μήτε τι ἄλλο προσφέρειν πρὸς τοἱπόν μήτε κέραμον, ἀλλ᾿ ἐκ χυτρίδων ἐπιχωριέων νόμον τὸ λοιπὸν αὐτόθι εῖναι πίνειν The archaeological results of the victory of Argives and Aiginetans over Athenians are given thus:—

(1) The change of dress in Athens from Doric to Ionic.

(2) the νόμος made by the Argives and Aiginetans, that their pins should be increased to half as large again;

(3) that these pins should be dedicated in the sanctuary of Damia and Auxesia;

(4) that no Attic pot should be brought into the sanctuary.

Seventeen pottery sherds from the seventh century BC pottery kiln uncovered at Knossos in 1993 were analysed by neutron activation at N.C.S.R. Demokritos. Fifteen of the seventeen sherds form an extremely homogeneous chemical group whose composition parallels Late Minoan I and Classical/Hellenistic pottery from Knossos. The two chemically different samples are also physically different, being much coarser and more severely burned.

Results from a recent surface investigation in the southern Dodecanese are presented. New sites and moveable finds are described and roughly dated. Most of them appear to belong to a Late Chalcolithic horizon, in Anatolian chronological terms. Several sites, however, produced also material that could be dated to the Early Bronze and Middle Bronze Ages, whereas M M III to LM I and Mycenaean III A–B pottery comes from Nisyros, Rhodes, and Chalke. In conclusion, the significance and implication of the finds are discussed, and suggestions on future research strategies are made.

George Finlay died at the age of seventy-five on 24 January a hundred years ago and I am honoured to pay tribute to this distinguished Scottish scholar and philhellene on the occasion of his centenary. It is indeed fitting that this should take place in the School which possesses many of his books and papers.

It might well be asked why there has as yet—to the best of my knowledge—been no full biography of Finlay. A glance at the available material may suggest the answer. What are usually known as the Finlay Papers housed in the British School comprise a formidable collection. Perhaps the best-known items are the so-called Journals. They are in part genuine journals in the sense of a day to day record, particularly of Finlay's experiences when travelling round the Aegean, or in Turkey, or on a visit to Scotland, journeying via Malta and France or Switzerland.